Hassan Dahir Aweys

Hassan Dahir Aweys (1935-) was the head of the 90-member shura council of the Islamic Courts Union and the spiritual leader of al-Shabaab.

Biography
Hassan Dahir Aweys was born in 1935 in Dhusa Mareb, Somalia to a Hawiye sub-clan, and he was a Colonel in the Somali National Army of Siad Barre during the Ogaden War of 1977. However, he had Islamist views, and in the 1990s he led al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI) in attacks against hotels in Ethiopia while being funded by Osama Bin Laden. The AIAI was targeted in a joint operation by the Ethiopian Army and the Somali National Front in the Mountains War of Gedo from 18 September 1996 to December 1998, with Ethiopia arming SNF militias. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed destroyed his group later in the 1990s, and Aweys joined the Islamic Courts Union in 2004. He became the shura council leader, and Eritrea funded him as a part of their feud with Ethiopia. He declared jihad against Ethiopian troops in Baidoa, and he went into exile in 2006 after the ICU was crushed. In September 2007, he appeared in Eritrea calling for a new rebellion, and from 26 May 2009 to 20 December 2010 he led Hizbul Islam before it merged with al-Shabaab; he became their spiritual leader.